This invention relates generally to the field of apparel manufacture and more particularly to the field of apparatus for feeding sheets of cloth or other material to processing apparatus.
In the field of apparel manufacture substantial progress has been made toward the mechanization of formerly tedious handwork. Apparatus has been made available for the bulk cutting of cloth and similar material into numerous identical pieces for standardized fabrication. Similarly, equipment has been made available for sequentially feeding such identical pieces from a stack into mechanized fabricating equipment for sewing and processing the pieces into finished goods. Exemplary of such equipment is the differentiator, or sheet separator and lifter, of U.S. Pat. No. 3,442,505. However, while this equipment has been capable of sequentially separating and feeding sheets from a stack, it has been necessary heretofore to momentarily shut down the fabricating line for reloading whenever such a stack has been exhausted. This requirement for shut-down is undersirable not only because of the temporary interruption in production but also because the sequencing and synchronization of much of the fabricating equipment must be reset each time the line is stopped.
Accordingly, it has been desired to have some means for continuously replenishing the stock of workpieces utilized in such mechanized equipment, such that the line may be replenished continuously without the requirement for shutdown.
Because of the space requirements of some mechanized garment assembly lines, it is necessary to provide such a replenishing means in a compact form. For example, pallet loaders wherein the pallets are transported horizontally for loading consume far too much valuable floor space and thus are uneconomical. Some types of vertical pallet loaders, while avoiding excessive consumption of floor space, require that the empty pallets must be removed vertically. This is a problem because it interferes with the operation of overhead type sheet differentiators such as described in the above mentioned patent, and which are positioned stationary over the topmost pallet of a vertical stack of pallets.